Speculative Fiction Writer

Apr 14, 2013

Another song that kicked off this theme for me. Like A, the song tells a story itself, but I really wanted to use it. I first heard it during a car ad, which also made me interested in marketing.

She knew in a little bit she would be
grateful for the layers and padding, but at the moment Tracy was
sweating. Of course, that might have had something to do with nerves
too.

“Starting count down.” Neil said in
her ear. The engines underneath her rumbled to life.

Tracy gave a silent prayer to God for
safety and to give thanks. She had wanted to go into space since she
was five, and now she was going to.

Thirteen years ago she had started
working for Kuiper, a company whose goal was to mine asteroids in the
belt it had been named for. While she had been hired to help design
the drilling machines, plans for the ship to take miners to the
Kuiper Belt had been struggling with the idea of space. The plan had
been to employee the smallest pilot possible. At 95 pounds and five
foot and a half, Tracy had been the obvious choice. She had said yes
without consulting Neil.

Granted, this was a test flight. She
wasn't going all the way to the Kuiper Belt, PS734 was a closer
asteroid and would serve as a good target for this test mission.
Tracy was to fly to PS734, drill using every tool the ship possessed,
and then return home.

“We have liftoff,” Neil said in her
ear, but it was rather redundant. From her seat in the cockpit it was
very evident she was leaving the confines of Earth below. She
followed protocols, kept talking to ground control, and when the last
of the fuel tanks had disengaged and fell away just stopped.

All the pictures and videos she had
seen did nothing to prepare her. There were stars and planets and
galaxies, it was large and small at the same time, it was being
gifted with a thousand diamonds, of watching your cage doors open
after years of captivity.

It was god damned beautiful.

“Tracy, Tracy!” Neil's voice filled
her ear. She realized she hadn't answered any attempts to reach her
on the radio in three minutes, that she was supposed to turn on the
thrusters and head towards the moon to use it as a gravity sling.

“I love you Neil,” she said and
turned off all power in the ship. To the technician's back home, it
would look like a grievous malfunction. No, not back home, back on
Earth.

She never realized how out of place she
felt on the ground before now. Space had always been her first love,
she hadn't really fallen in love and married Neil because he was a
good guy, but because he shared her passion for space. After working
together so long, people assumed they were dating, so they started,
and after three years when they wondered why they hadn't married Neil
went down on one knee. It was a mutual relationship, they were both
second in line compared to the draw of the stars and the feeling of
wonder they got looking up at them even after having masters in
astrophysics. Others didn't understand their passion, so they hid it
by pretending to be a normal couple.

Here, amongst the stars, Tracy felt as
if she was home. This room of midnight walls filled with flickering
candles was comforting despite knowing she would never reach most of
those candle and she would probably die in it.

Neil would understand, he'd actually be
pretty jealous.

But Tracy didn't care. She was home,
and would spend her last air, water, and food supply just drifting
amongst the stars. Maybe she turn on the thrusters next week to visit
the Moon or a planet, or use all her gas to leave the solar system
and be the first to seen a new sky. But now, she'd just sit in her
chair, stare out the window, and cry tears of joy.